


Of Scimitars and Gold

by protectoroffaeries



Series: Tumblr Prompt Fics [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Ficlet Prompt Fill, Gen, Jossed, Self-Harm, my prediction for Molly's backstory was Wrong but i still like this ficlet, vaguely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 06:43:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14971316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/protectoroffaeries/pseuds/protectoroffaeries
Summary: "What if they steal your voice again?"





	Of Scimitars and Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt from @twatiest-of-waffles: A made up fic title: Of Scimitars and Gold. Originally posted @nottmygoblindaughter.

_“It doesn’t matter who you are today.”_

Molly drags the blade across his arm, and for the first time, he doesn’t flinch at the sight of his own blood. He moves fluidly, whips the scimitar out at his makeshift dummy:  _sharp, fast, deadly._  He draws the other one, activates it even faster, without pause or hesitation. The poor dummy - which is only stuffed, ragged fabric fashioned to broken chair - is ribbons in a handful of seconds. It’s unsatisfying. And Yasha’s going to pissed that he ruined half of her workout regimen.

Maybe she’ll take it out on him. It’s an incredibly stupid thing to hope for; Yasha could beat the shit out of him with her left pinkie. But that might be what he needs. Molly doesn’t know, he’s never really known what he needs. What he wants, definitely. What he believes, check. But what he needs? Does anyone spend enough time examining themselves to know what they need?

Molly drops his scimitars, listens to the muffled  _clang_  as they smack the ground. They belonged to a man he knew for all of ten minutes, passed down from generation to generation - supposedly - only to end up in the hands of an outsider. It sounds like the kind of bullshit Molly would spew in his own death-throes, choking on the same blood that makes those scimitars sing. Anyway, they’re not special. They’ll take any blood - on conditions, in arrangements, for a price.

“Molly?” says a small voice from behind him, and Molly comes back to himself, realizes he’s staring at silver glint of his blades in the lamplight, at the glitter of their golden pommels. How long has he been standing here?

“Toya.” The lamplight makes her hair glow golden, gives her a halo. “It’s late. Why aren’t you in bed?”

“Your arm is bleeding.” Her eyes lock on the cuts, too smooth to be an accident, and Molly yanks his sleeve over them, cursing himself. She’s a tough kid, he knows; he remembers being her age, having to be a tough kid, but that doesn’t mean he has to push her. They’re supposed to protect her, for fuck’s sake.

“I’m- you should be in bed,” he says, but gently.

“Maybe you shouldn’t mess with those swords anymore,” Toya says, “what if they steal your voice again?”

Molly almost wishes it was the scimitars that left him mute. It might be simpler that way. Maybe. “They won’t.”

Toya looks at him, or she looks through him, he can’t tell. Children are unnervingly perceptive sometimes, especially when adults are trying to hide things from them. “I think,” she says, “you should stop.”

Molly opens his mouth to say  _it isn’t like that_ , because it isn’t, but she’s eleven years old, and it has to be at least two in the morning, and he doesn’t know if he could have this conversation with Yasha after three shots, let alone with poor Toya, who already knows more than she deserves.  

So he says, “I will.”

_“It only matters who you are in the end.”_


End file.
